SPONSOR: Vernetti
COMMITTEE ACTION: Voted "Do Pass" by the Standing Committee on Crime and Public Safety by a vote of 16 to 1.
Currently, the State preempts the field of regulating the use of electronic communication devices by the operators of motor vehicles.
This bill changes the language of the preemption so that local laws, ordinances, or regulations are allowed as long as they do not conflict with the State's law on the subject.
PROPONENTS: Supporters say that the preemption language related to hands-free laws in existing statute doesn't allow municipalities to have a mirroring ordinance to the state law in order to upload a ticket to a municipal court. There was a municipality that had a hands-free ordinance in place but the preemption statute required the municipality to write a probable cause statement and send it to the circuit court rather than being able to address it at the municipal level. Allowing municipalities to enforce this at their level would save hundreds of hours of work.
Testifying in person for the bill were Representative Vernetti; and Scott Craig, Sunrise Beach Police.
OPPONENTS: There was no opposition voiced to the committee.
Written testimony has been submitted for this bill. The full written testimony and witnesses testifying online can be found under Testimony on the bill page on the House website.
Statutes affected: